Kurd Leader Urges U.S. to Establish Iraqi Rule Soon

Reuters ^ | 4/14/2003 | N/A

[a_Turk]

DUBAI (Reuters) - A Kurdish leader urged the United States in an interview published on Monday to grant Iraqis control of their country as soon as possible or face increasing resistance as an occupying power.

"No people in the world want to remain occupied...If they stay for a long time and act like occupiers, then they will face resistance," Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), told the pan-Arab Al Hayat daily.

"But if they act as promised and help rebuild a federal Iraq, then things will be different," he said.

Barzani is the leader of one of two main parties in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq. The other is the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Jalal Talabani.

Barzani told Al Hayat the chaos and looting in the northern city of Kirkuk after Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters poured into the oil hub when Iraqi forces collapsed on Thursday was because "some had not abided with an agreement with allied forces that peshmerga forces would not enter the city."

He was referring to Kurdish fighters of Talabani's PUK.

"Let us be clear, we had agreed with the Americans that Turkey would not enter northern Iraq and in exchange we do not enter Kirkuk and Mosul," he said.

"We complied with not entering so as not to touch the identity of Kirkuk but the breach that happened made me fear for the future of Kirkuk," he added.

Turkey is sensitive to suggestions Kurds may look to seize control of Kirkuk, fearing it would embolden its own Kurdish minority. Iraqi Kurd guerrillas said they would leave the city as U.S. soldiers took control.

The KDP governs two of three Iraqi provinces which make up the Kurdish zone, self-ruled since 1991 under a U.S. and British patrolled no-fly zone was set up to protect Kurds.

The United States plans to host a broad-based conference of Iraqi opposition leaders near the southern Iraq town of Nassiriya on Tuesday to attempt to lay the foundations for a transitional government.

[MEG33]

We can't make a miracle in days.I pray the Iraqis will find consensus on an interim govt soon and we can clean out the hornets nests lurking. I hope Syria thinks harboring groups that would attack an emerging govt. and American soldiers will consider carefully the practice of harboring terrorists.The locals in Tikrit say the RGs took off their uniforms and headed for Syria.

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